


i guess i’m just another link in the chain

by janeseyre



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-05 22:52:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11023272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janeseyre/pseuds/janeseyre
Summary: An exploration of Todd’s perspective upon realizing the extent of Dirk’s lies in 1x07.





	i guess i’m just another link in the chain

**Author's Note:**

> This is set during 1x07 “Weaponized Soul,” during the scene between Dirk and Todd on the pier right after Patrick Spring has left. Completely in-canon; this is my interpretation of Todd’s thought processes during the scene.
> 
> I was mainly motivated to write this by noticing people expressing confusion about the reason(s) for Todd’s anger at Dirk here, so I thought I’d give my interpretation a shot. Let me know what you think! (Also, this is my first ever fic, please be nice!)
> 
> Title is from “Lousy Connection” by Ezra Furman (featured briefly in 1x02).
> 
> No copyright infringement is intended, I own nothing, all dialogue is lifted directly from the episode.

Todd is not listening. Dirk is rambling about Patrick Spring, and time travel, and Todd is not listening. The last of the pieces he had begun to put together while sitting in the truck are finally falling into place.

This was how Dirk knew. This was why Dirk met him, why Dirk had the kitten, why Dirk knew about ‘three questions, one answer’, why Gordon Rimmer had recognized them. All culminating in what happened on that day – today, now – at the hotel.

“The master key was missing the day of the murder.” Todd stops walking, his gaze fixed straight ahead. He feels Dirk stop beside him. “I remember now. It’s because I stole my own key. And the lottery ticket that I lost, I’m the one who found it in the truck in the first place. Everything happened exactly the way that it did before.”

He pauses, and turns to face Dirk. Dirk, who knew all along, who lied to him even as he told Todd to come clean of his own deception. Dirk, the first person Todd had ever confided in, and who himself had been lying to Todd the whole time.

“You’re a monster,” Todd says hoarsely.

The half-smile on Dirk’s face falters for a moment, but it’s back in a heartbeat. “A monster?” He shakes his head slightly. He doesn’t get it. “Come on Todd, you’re overreacting.”

Todd knows that Dirk didn’t know everything that was going to happen. But he knew enough. He knew the outcomes. He knew exactly where everything was heading, and he lied about it.

“You knew what was happening before you even met me,” Todd tells him. “When Dorian died. When they tried to kill me on the bridge.” Todd thinks for a moment that Dirk wants to say something, but he doesn’t, so he keeps going. “When Farah was still being held in that room. When that FBI guy threatened Amanda.”

Dirk tries to interrupt now. “You saw what I said to me. That wasn’t enough to -”

“No no no.” Todd needs Dirk to listen, to understand, but his words can’t quite keep up with the realizations as they come to him. “When we were almost crushed to death, and electrocuted, and burned to death, and shot. You knew that we’d end up…here.”

Here, in the future – well, the past now – alive. Todd thinks of Dirk, sitting in the jeep outside the Ridgley, telling Todd to tell Amanda the truth, _If you don’t tell her now, and we get killed later_ … But they wouldn’t be. They’d be here, and Dirk knew that. And Dirk knew what Todd himself had told him in the woods: _I was thinking about how if I die right now, I’ll never have the chance to make up for all the stuff I’ve done to her_. He’s played Todd for a fool the entire time. He feels used and manipulated and…betrayed.

“I didn’t know that, exactly,” Dirk says haltingly. He’s desperate, still trying to reassure Todd, still trying to salvage this. “I didn’t have any context.”

 _Not good enough_ , Todd thinks. “Oh, and when were you gonna share that with me, huh? I just sort of thought you left things out because you were eccentric, or crazy, or stupid.” Todd lets an edge creep into his voice on that last word, but his anger is swiftly being overtaken by his hurt. “But you didn’t. You deliberately hid things from me. You lied to me!” Tears start to blur his vision. He knows the irony of what he’s saying. He knows. It still hurts.

“I didn’t lie. I- I just didn’t tell you the whole truth because I didn’t understand it! And –”

“You’re a liar,” Todd cuts him off. Not telling the whole truth is exactly the same is lying. And if Dirk hadn’t lied, if Todd had known he was going to make it out of this, if Todd had just waited a little longer to tell Amanda, if Todd could have avoided destroying the most important relationship in his life… “And you ruined my life. Just to have a friend.”

The hurt on Dirk’s face is palpable but there is no going back now. “You deserve to be alone, Dirk.”

Dirk’s blue eyes are shining with tears but his jaw is set. “I didn’t lie,” he insists, and then: “I think you of all people know what a lie looks like by now.”

The world stops for a moment. For a moment, Todd is in shock. Then the words hit him, like knives into his chest; the trust he put in Dirk on that day in the woods violently thrown back at him, shattered.

Dirk is scrambling, blinking fast, saying he didn’t mean it, but Todd is done. He is out. They are finished.

He feels a tear leak out of his bruised eye and roll down his face. “After all this is over,” he says. “Don’t ever speak to me again, Dirk.”

He looks at Dirk for a moment, and both of them are silent. Then he turns and walks to the truck. He doesn’t look back. He doesn’t see Dirk watching him go, his shaking breaths, the pain in his glassy blue eyes.


End file.
